This book will inspire in you an interest in the small or forgotten towns across America as much as it inspires in me an interest in reading more of Bill Bryson's travel books. Meaning, it won't. And for all the wrong reasons. Bryson's humor in his depiction of some of the locations he visits may possess a kernel of truth, but he largely comes off as resentful towards the places, hateful towards the people, and unfunny in his observations of them both. There were some times where I got a laugh, but it wasn't at the fat jokes, or the women jokes, or the fat women jokes. It wasn't at the derision and disgust of homeless people. It wasn't at how boring he said everything was over and over again. It wasn't at the irony of his disdain for tourists.

Bryson is uninterested in truly discovering anything about the places he goes or making any truly humorous observations about them that don't rely on denigrating every aspect of those places, and that makes me so uninterested in discovering anything else Bryson has to write. What else can I say that other 1-star reviews haven't already said.

The first and only other Bryson book I read was A Walk in the Woods. Go read that, if you care to, then find another travel writer.